For Geria Johnson, the child care center her toddler attends is more than a safe place for her child to play so that she can work.
“It’s like a community,” Johnson said. “They have played a huge role in our lives.”
UNI-Pres Kindercottage in East St. Louis takes a holistic approach, its executive director Aimee Hart said. Children learn and grow, receive healthy, hot meals and snacks, and get seasonal field trips. The center has essentials families can take home, from food to diapers, and even Christmas presents.
Johnson is expecting another child, and looks forward to him getting that experience at UNI-Pres. But it’s not clear if that will happen.
Last week, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced it planned to freeze $1 billion for child care and other family assistance programs in Illinois, citing fraud concerns. Illinois and the other four impacted states filed a federal lawsuit, and a judge issued a temporary restraining order on Friday that prevents the freeze for a limited period of time as the case moves through the court system.
Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul deemed the judge’s decision a win. His news release states the lawsuit asserts “even a temporary disruption to the funding would have devastating consequences for families, the economy and their states.”
The restraining order is welcome news for early care and education advocates such as Brightpoint, an Illinois child and family service organization. But, it is preliminary; as of now, the order is scheduled to expire in 14 days.
Should the funds ultimately be frozen, there will be big consequences for Illinois’ child care system, advocates warn.
Two of the three major federal funding streams threatened to be frozen — the Child Care and Development Fund and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families — help support the Illinois child care subsidy system. Johnson’s family is one of what a news release from Gov. JB Pritzker’s office says is roughly 100,000 who depend on the Illinois Child Care Assistance Program to afford quality care.
If the freeze ultimately goes through and funds are not released, the effects will be far-reaching, said Janice Moenster, Brightpoint’s director of programs and operations for the southern region of the state. If families cannot pay for child care, child care businesses will close. Without accessible child care, parents may be forced to leave the workforce, causing local economies to suffer, Moenster said.
She added that for some, not working is not an option, and that could lead to children being left alone or in otherwise unsafe situations.
“It ripples across every single dimension in communities,” Moenster said.
Moenster’s organization helps administer the Illinois Child Care Assistance Program in the metro-east. The federal government funnels these funds to the Illinois Department of Human Services, which then relays them to Brightpoint to distribute to child care providers that serve families who use the subsidy. Brightpoint also helps families apply for the child care assistance, verifies their eligibility, helps them understand the portion of their child care costs they need to pay, and other administrative work.
Prior to Friday’s temporary restraining order, the Illinois Department of Human Services told Brightpoint and other early childhood organizations last week that it did not anticipate the freeze would have an immediate impact. Moenster explained the subsidy payments are dispersed to providers on a reimbursement basis, meaning Brightpoint is currently distributing funds to providers for the children they cared for in December.
Moenster said this new injunction gives hope that the subsidy funding will continue to flow in the coming months. Ultimately, though, that remains to be seen.
Why does the government want to freeze child care funding?
In letters sent to the state last week announcing the attempted freeze, the federal Administration for Children and Families, which is under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, describes the freezes as “restricted drawdowns.” The federal government aimed to pause the funding while it did a thorough review of the grants’ uses, the letters show.
The inquiry is the result of the funds being fraudulently used, and that the state was providing these benefits “intended for American citizens and lawful permanent residents” to “illegal aliens,” the letters state.
In the case of the Child Care and Development grants, the U.S. Administration for Children and Families requested “additional fiscal accountability requirements” regarding attendance and payment information.
Moenster said she finds this last part particularly confusing. Her understanding, she said, is that Illinois already meets these requirements.
“We have so many safeguards in place that it’s hard to imagine what else is needed to document and verify,” Moenster said.
The federal government announced its intent to freeze the funds in Illinois, California, Colorado, New York and Minnesota amid child care fraud investigations in Minnesota, the Washington Post reported.
“Families who rely on child care and family assistance programs deserve confidence that these resources are used lawfully and for their intended purpose,” U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Deputy Secretary Jim O’Neill said in a news release announcing the multi-state freeze. “This action reflects our commitment to program integrity, fiscal responsibility, and compliance with federal requirements.”
When the Belleville News-Democrat asked the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services if the agency encountered any specific fraud concerns in Illinois’ child care system, a department spokesperson responded with a link to its aforementioned press release on the matter. The release does not cite specific instances of suspected fraud in the state.
The Belleville News-Democrat also reached out to the department regarding the temporary restraining order, but a department representative could not immediately be reached for comment.
Child care providers, families say much is at stake
Makisha Binns owns and operates a licensed child care business called Kiddos Care out of her Belleville home. Illinois Child Care Assistance Program makes it possible for half of her small group of children to attend care.
Child care businesses typically have very few, if any, sources of revenue outside of tuition. That has to stretch to cover a myriad of expenses — from insurance to any and all supplies they may need. This means that any loss in subsidies not only puts the families who rely on them in danger of losing care, but entire child care facility at risk of closing.
“It’s a hard situation to even imagine,” Binns said about a possible funding freeze. “The more you think about it, the more you stress about it. The unknown hurts.”
UNI-Pres Kindercottage would take a big hit, too, if the subsidy funds are still paused come next month or longer; Approximately 80% of their children use them. As a nonprofit, Kindercottage has more opportunities to seek alternative funding, such as donations from local groups and churches. Still, Hart said, none of that is guaranteed.
“We haven’t hit the panic button because we haven’t gotten word from the state like ‘it will be effective this day,’” Hart said. “I guess we’re just kind of prayerful that this won’t happen … but we’re not being naive, so we are having conversations (about) contingency plans and I’m also encouraging my families to have contingency plans.”
For Camia Jordan, there’s not a clear backup plan. Her two children are able to attend Kindercottage because of the state subsidy, and she also works there as an assistant teacher. If the subsidies cease, she’ll not only lose help paying for her children’s care, but will be at risk of losing her job if the center can’t survive. She’s concerned that if she can’t afford child care, she won’t be able to work anywhere.
Jordan planned to go back to school to further her career in education, but the federal funding uncertainty throws a wrench into those plans, she said.
“That breaks long-term dreams,” she said.
Hart said such conundrums illustrate what she calls “an unfortunate perpetual cycle:” Working or going to school is often a condition of receiving food and other types of assistance, but if they can’t find affordable child care, they can’t work. At the same, without child care, the children lose out on an early education at time experts say is crucial for brain development.
“We’re spiraling families downward, and that’s not the American way,” Hart said. “We are supposed to be uplifting communities, not putting in rash decisions …. That would ultimately weaken the community and the economic structure of working families that need support.”
Editor's note: This story was originally published by the Belleville News-Democrat. Madison Lammert is a reporter for the BND, a news partner of St. Louis Public Radio.
